could set Thanksgiving dinner on, a woman nursing a child old enough to tackle a two-dollar steak,
and a few blacks, all of whom were men and all face-creased, gaunt-looking, and smiling.
As it started getting dark, the visiting team rolled up, a group of edgy, sharp-faced badgers in
polyester knits. Mug-book faces. Twenty in all and travelling in a herd. The Romans had arrived; time
for the festivities to begin.
“Track dudes,” Mufalatta said. “Always a bunch don‟t get enough action at the races. Look at those
threads, man. Now there‟s a fuckin‟ crime.”
Next the emperor arrived—in a silver and gray stretch Lincoln limo big enough to throw a Christmas
party in. The chariot stopped for a chat with the guard at the road.
“That‟s Elroy Luther Craves in that car there,” the Mufalatta Kid said. Now I knew what the Kid was
doing there.
“Elroy Luther?”
“That‟s his name, babes, Elroy Luther Graves,” he said.
“Nice to know,” I said, and decided to get a peek at the man everybody seemed to have a healthy
respect for. As I started toward the limo, I ran into the back of Mufalatta‟s hand. He never looked at
you when he spoke; he was always staring off somewhere at nothing in particular.
“Uh-uh,” he said.
“Uh-uh?” I said.
“Uh-uh. Not that way.”
“Fuck him,” I growled.
Mufalatta moved his hand. “Okay,” he said, “but you‟re on his turf, man. No place to start trouble”
I thought about that for a minute. What Mufalatta was telling me was that it wasn‟t just Graves‟ turf, it
was the Kid‟s too.
“I didn‟t know you had something going,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Don‟t be. It‟s the way things happen. You‟ll get the hang of
“Okay,” I said, “so we do it your way.”
“That‟s cool,” he said. “For now, the Kid‟s way is to hang loose, don‟t splash the water, don‟t wave
your face around a lot, lay back, see what comes along.”
“Is there gonna be trouble here?”
“Anyplace Elroy Luther is, there could be trouble. It comes to him like flies to a two-holer.”
“Well, are you expecting trouble?”
“I just answered that,” the Kid said, and shut up.
“I‟m going to mosey around,” I said.
I followed the silver chariot a hundred yards down the road until it ended at an old frame roadhouse, a
big place with a cone-shaped roof, boarded-up windows, and a lot of noise inside.
And there were the dogs. Mean dogs. Not yipping dogs. These were angry, snarling, growling,
scarred, teeth-snapping, gum-showing, slobbering dogs, biting at their cages with yellow teeth. I
could feel the gooseflesh on my arms rising like biscuits in a stove.
In all, I estimated three hundred fifty to four hundred people were packed inside, all of whom had
paid ten dollars a head, man, woman, and child, to the giant at the door. He was bald and blackbearded, wore overalls and no shirt, had arms like a truck tire and curly hair on his shoulders. For
those who were not impressed by his size, there was a .38 police special hanging haphazardly from his
rear pocket.
When the crowd outside the arena had thinned to half a dozen, a tall, pole-thin black man got out of
the front seat of the Lincoln. The rear window glided silently down and he reached in and drew out a
wad of bills big enough to strangle Dumbo. I got a quick look at a handsome black face at the
window. I had imagined Nose Graves to be ugly. If that was Nose Graves, and I was fairly sure it was,
he was the lady-killer type. Older than I‟d thought, probably forty-five or so, give or take a couple of
years either way. His bushy hair was graying at the temples and he had a deep scar almost the width
of one eyebrow, another over his ear that carried a gray streak with it. His nose was straight and no
larger than mine. He was wearing gold-rimmed sunglasses. My guess was, Nose Graves probably
wore those glasses to bed.
The window went back up without a sound and the skinny man headed for the rear door of Uncle
Jolly‟s. So that was the pitch, then. Longnose Graves was the banker. It was his house.
I sauntered up to the gate. My sawbuck vanished into the keeper‟s fist. He cut me about six ways with
his black eyes before jerking his head for me to go in.
Noise, heat, odour, hit me like a bucket of hot water. Tiers had been built up and away from a pit in
the middle of the room. Fruit jars of moonshine were being passed back and forth. Some of the
families had brought picnics and were wolfing down dinner, waiting for the tournament to start.
Smoke swirled around half a dozen green-shaded two-hundred-watt bulbs that hung from the ceiling
over the plywood rink.
Most of the crowd could have been dirt farmers living on food stamps—until the betting started.
That‟s when the U.S. Grants and Ben Franklins appeared.
The place suddenly sounded like a tobacco auction. Graves‟ man stood in the ring and handled it with
the bored finesse of a maitre d‟. A wizened, mean-looking little creep, with a flimsy white beard,
whom I took to be Uncle Jolly, stood behind him with a large roll of movie tickets over one wrist,
handing out chits as the bets were made, after scribbling what I assumed to be the size of the bet and
the number of the clog on the back.
A lot of money was going down, big money. And this was only the first fight. Clyde Barrow could
have knocked over this soiree and retired.
45
DOUBLE FEATURE
It had seen better days, the South Longbeach Cinema, a movie palace once long ago, when Garbo
and Taylor were the stars and glamour and double features eased the pain of the Depression. Its
flamingo-painted walls were chipped and faded now, and the art deco curves around its marquee
were terminally spattered by pigeons and sea birds.
It stood alone, consuming, with its adjacent parking lot, an entire block, facing a small park. Behind
it, looming up like some extinct prehistoric creature, was the tattered skeleton of a roller coaster,
stirring bleak memories of a time when the world was a little more innocent and South Longbeach
was the playground of the city‟s middle class.
Now the theater was an ethnic showplace, specializing in foreign films shown in their original
language. It attracted enough trade to stay open, but not enough to be cared for properly. The park
across the street was rundown too. Its nests of palm trees dry and dusty, the small lake polluted, most
of its lights broken or burned out. At night nobody went near the place but drunks, hoboes, and
predators.
The ocean was hidden from the area by an abutment, the foot of one of the many towering dunes from
which the city had taken its name. The road that wound around it to the beach was pockmarked by
weather and strewn with broken bottles and beer cans.
A long black limousine was parked in the “no stand‟ zone in front of the theater. The double feature
was Roma and La Strada. Stizano and his bunch had come only for the last feature, La Strada.
Stizano, an inveterate movie buff, had dropped his wife off, and come back to the movies with his
number one button and two other gunsels. It was his way of relaxing.